After four years in a relationship with my lovely lady, I decided to take the plunge this year and propose to her. I did this on my birthday. Along with the added convenience of being easy for me to remember the date, I thought this would be extra sneaky and she would never see it coming.

As the stereotype goes, all men are great with directions, but useless when it comes to remembering important (in the eyes of a woman) dates and special occasions. When was the first time we kissed? When was the first time we ate spaghetti? When is her birthday? What did she say last week? I don’t know what she’s on about half the time… and I’m sure most guys will agree with me on that!

My colleague and good friend Kyla-Jane recently tied the knot and is now going through the early days of matrimony and enjoying every minute of it. While discussing how much effort goes into planning a wedding, we somehow got started on how the relationship between an ISP and a customer is not too different to one between a couple.

After a few (OK, more than a few) minutes of corny one liners, we came up with some (rather different) wedding vows.

Regulator: Do you, the customer, take Web Africa to be your lawfully wedded ISP, to browse and to download from this day forward, in peak and off peak, through high and low latency, in outages and improved infrastructure, to Download plus and to Pro; ’til cancellation do you part?

Customer: “I do…”

Regulator: Do you Web Africa, take this person to be your loyal customer, and do you promise to be true and transparent in promotions and outages, in AUP’s and billing terms, in support and NPS, through complaints and credits, in nudges and in compliments; ’til Telkom do you part?

Web Africa: “I do…”

Then I now pronounce you Customer and Provider, you may now activate your service….